


Staring Back at Me

by CelticKnot



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s06e11 The God Complex, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 09:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18825559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticKnot/pseuds/CelticKnot
Summary: Who could make The Oncoming Storm, The Bringer of Darkness, The Destroyer of Worlds quake in his boots like a child afraid of the dark?





	Staring Back at Me

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this, and a number of other Doctor Who one-shots, back in 2011. I'm porting some of them over from FFN.

Oh, I'm such a hypocrite. I told the others to stay away from whatever door drew them, and now here I am, with my hand on the knob of door number eleven. Blame it on my insatiable curiosity.

I hesitate, ever so briefly. I could walk away. I should walk away. That's it, I'm letting go and I'm walking away. This is me, walking away. Goodbye, door number eleven.

I open the door. Just a crack. And I look inside.

_Of course._

There stands a man in a familiar suit, with a familiar face, twisted into an unfamiliar expression. The self-satisfied triumph written on that familiar face makes me feel slightly sick. I remember.

Behind the familiar man, a woman walks toward her house, glancing back at him as she loosens a weapon in the holster at her hip. He's too busy admiring his own handiwork to notice. He's just done something colossal, something bold, something incredibly brave and unforgivably stupid. He used to know better, but his loneliness and despair have warped his conscience.

The Cloister Bell tolls.

The scene strikes terror into my hearts. Just as it was designed to do, of course. I stare into the familiar man's eyes and see that combination of desperation and defiance that will be—was—his ultimate undoing, and all of a sudden I can't breathe. He's finally snapped, gone mad, lost all perspective. He's taken the Law into his own hands and styled himself a god. The harm he could do, the destruction he could wreak is… well, it's my worst nightmare. I want to run to him and shake that smug expression off his face, to save him from himself. But I know it's too late for that.

Because, of course, it's me.

Me in my previous regeneration. My tenth self, just returned to Earth from the Bowie Base One disaster. The self-proclaimed Time Lord Victorious. A man who's just had a worlds-shattering revelation that is completely and totally wrong. A man who will now run: run for his life, for his soul, for his sanity.

I stare across Time and Space, into my own eyes, and I'm suffocating. My hearts race as though they're trying to outpace each other. I am rooted to the spot, paralyzed, unable to look away yet wanting nothing more than to flee this terrible memory.

I am the most feared thing in all the Universe. It was out of the sheer terror of me that the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Sontarans, and all the other warring species out there came together to lock me in the Pandorica. I scared their battle fleets away by my sheer presence. What, then, should frighten _me?_ Who could possibly make The Oncoming Storm, The Bringer of Darkness, The Destroyer of Worlds quake in his boots like a child afraid of the dark?

Who else?


End file.
